At most hotels and resorts around the world, the safest thing to order from room service is usually a bucket of ice. At some of the hotels (even leading 5 star hotels) I’ve stayed in, the meals have been terrible and something you’d expect at a truck stop beside the highway. This is definitely the case after 10pm when the kitchen brigade has headed home and the meals are prepared (or heated) by the room porters.

How often have you seen the room service menu only offer pumpkin soup, hot dog, Hawaiian pizza, club sandwich, French fries, spaghetti bolognaise and wedges? Hotel guests need to be pampered, attended, respected and not insulted.

When I was executive chef of a city hotel a few years back I was forced to offer a very similar menu to what I’d mentioned about. Not because I wanted to and not because of guest comments or suggestions. I was forced to offer that menu because of the company standard and so are many chefs around the world. But chefs need to fight back with management and force innovation on room service menus.

A survey of corporate guests a few years back highlighted a very specific demographic that was regularly ordering room service, the business woman.  Possibly intimidated by being hassled in the bar or restaurant, the business woman seeks the solitude of their hotel room. From this survey, many in-room dining menus were tweaked to add lighter, healthier meals including salads and smaller main courses. Definitely keep this in mind when developing your next room service menu.

There are different ways to develop a strategy for your room service food and beverage product. One path to creating an innovative menu might be offering menus similar to those of an upmarket café. You could even brand the offering, to give it a real identity and character. The menus could include a wide range of salads, baked pastry goods like muffins or banana bread, toasted sandwiches and foccacias, pastas and desserts. You should also offer daily specials which will be appreciated by long-staying guests. These could be a soup of the day, steak of the day and dessert of the day. Many of these dishes will be familiar to guests, and for those who’ve travelled long distances and are tired will appreciate dishes that they might have prepared themselves at home.

When the Duxton Perth first opened its doors, the executive chef at the time, Andy Babcock, designed an Asian-styled room service menu for guests. His limited Asian menu was similar to that of a nearby Chinese or Thai restaurant, with dishes such as steamed prawn dumplings, spring rolls, honey chicken, fried rice, Singapore noodles, green chicken curry with jasmine rice and more. The meals were even delivered in a bag, in packaging that was disposable and didn’t need cleaning. For a corporate hotel, this strategy catered for those that didn’t feel like an upmarket meal in the restaurant or a hot dog from the room service menu.

Sit in the foyer of any 4 or 5 star hotel one evening and count how many pizzas are delivered to the hotel. Pizza ovens these days have found their way in to service stations but not into hotel kitchens. So why not in your hotel? Could you develop your very own pizza brand in house? Have a graphic designer create and print pizza menus and pizza boxes to support your own brand. If you already have an Italian restaurant the room service pizza brand could be an extension of that brand. You’ll need to create a menu that includes the pizzas you’d find at Dominos or Pizza Hut as well as a few gourmet styled pizzas. The pizzas could be made in advance, then frozen allowing freshly baked pizza to be delivered 24 hours a day to hotel guests. It’s also allowing you to gain added revenue that’s going to a pizza shop.

Need inspiration? Then check-in to one of your rooms for the night and order room service. Put yourself into the position of your guests and see what the room service experience is like. I wish that I had the knowledge of what it’s like to travel on business when I was an executive chef. I know that I would have definitely created different menus and tweaked the overall experience. 

Finally, dump the room service charges. It’s ridiculous. It creates a real barrier to having people picking up the phone knowingly they’ll be wacked with service charges and a room service tray charge. Surely when a room service order is taken, there is far less contact with the guest then there would be in the restaurant or bar. Other than delivery of the tray, the guest has no other contact with the hotel staff.  So why charge extra for less service? Hotel guests are already paying a premium each night for the room as well as expensive phone calls and valet parking. Sso why slog them anymore? You’re guests will think twice next time prior to ordering and simply either go to the restaurant or dine outside the hotel. Try to keep the revenue in house and remove the room service charge. If you do remove it, make sure that during check-in sequence of service that the front office staff mention it to guests.


So next time you’re stuck for an idea for room service, have a look at your guest profile, look at what the kitchen is capable of preparing and try something different.  Your regular guests will certainly appreciate it and your revenue will increase.